


Overdrive

by yodepalma



Series: limit break [13]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Bad Puns, Blood, Broken Bones, Gen, Gladio is trying his best ok, Implied/Referenced Torture, Pre-Game(s), Touch Aversion, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-16 15:07:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10573815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yodepalma/pseuds/yodepalma
Summary: The thing is, it's not enough for Gladio to be able to compensate for straight-up weaknesses in the defenses. He has to know what to do when those defenses break too.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I watched a lot of fun how-to videos on setting broken & dislocated bones to write this story, so be prepared for descriptions of a couple things being set by non-professionals. :) And a wee bit of blood.
> 
> The puns here are not funny for multiple reasons. Please don’t let this ruin puns for you; they can handle ruining themselves on their own.
> 
> Ignis is 21 here, and there are references to [blindside](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10662039) though this happens a couple years later. Some of it won't quite make sense if you didn't read blindside first.

_Overdrive_

Gladio is Noct's shield and, yeah, in the end what that really means is that he'll one day have to sacrifice his life to save the prince's. But for right now his job is to make damn sure he knows every weakness of the people closest to Noct, because he's the one that will have to compensate for a failure in their defenses.

He's got his own weaknesses sorted out already, couldn't risk them blindsiding him at the wrong moment. Noct's cute friend is easy to figure out, his never-ending supply of words and nervous gestures obviously hiding something he doesn't want to talk about. But Iggy, with his dorky glasses and "special training", is a tougher fish to fry.

He's careful not to let any of these thoughts show as Iggy enters the training room they usually spar in, but he doesn't hide the way he looks Iggy over either. Not any more, anyway. When he'd first discovered just what kind of training Iggy was being put through, he'd _tried_ to hide his concern over Iggy's health, but it hadn't worked. Not exactly a surprise. Iggy was too damn observant and way smarter than anybody Gladio had ever known in his life, and Gladio wasn't exactly a subtle guy. He'd been caught and called out (because Iggy _could_ do that with him), and even though Iggy thought the worry was completely unnecessary, Gladio just worried about him overtly instead.

Gladio's job is to protect the prince of Lucis, but he's had "protect" drilled into his head for so long it just sort of...extends out to everyone he knows. Iggy might find it annoying, but it frankly _pisses Gladio off_.

They fall into their usual stretching exercises in silence, easily in sync after doing them together for so long. Iggy doesn't seem to have any injuries for a change—well, none that are affecting him anyway. And Gladio's gotten really good at finding the tiny hints that something is wrong.

"Look like you're feeling good today," Gladio says, the first words either of them bothers speaking to each other.

"I'm fine," Iggy says. His voice is bland, barely showing any emotion and certainly not showing any hint of pain (even when he obviously should be feeling some), but Gladio is used to listening for the nuances. Weirdly, Iggy actually _does_ sound like he's fine. Gladio snorts anyway.

"You always say that," he points out.

"And I always mean it."

Gladio rolls his eyes and summons his sword, grins a bit too widely because Iggy is a good fight even on a bad day. What his friend lacks in muscle he more than makes up for in speed, and these days they're a pretty even match. Especially since Gladio has to hold back at least a little so he doesn't risk giving him a real injury.

But today he's doing something a little different.

The thing is, it's not enough for Gladio to be able to compensate for straight-up weaknesses in the defenses. He has to know what to do when those defenses _break_ too. And he knows Iggy can take a lot, but he needs to see first hand just how much 'a lot' is.

First he needs to get a good hit in, and Gladio isn't a patient man, but for the sake of Noct's safety he'd lay in wait for hours. In a friendly spar it's only a couple minutes of dodge-block-parry- _watch_ before he sees his chance and dives forward. He lands a blow to Iggy's ribs and swears he hears the telltale crack of broken bone, but Iggy barely even grunts as he falls to the ground gasping for air.

"Fuck!" Gladio gasps anyway, because he hadn't meant to _literally_ break anything. "Hold on, I'll grab a potion—"

"I'm fine," Iggy says and, damn, he barely even sounds _annoyed_ , let alone hurt. He gets back to his feet a bit slowly, but by the time he's standing again even Gladio can barely make out the slump in his posture. "Shall we continue?"

Gladio hesitates, because anybody else would be done for the day even if they had taken a potion to heal the bone, but this _is_ what he'd been working toward. To see how far Iggy would go. As much as he doesn't want to see his friend in pain, he just _needs to know_.

So he lifts his sword again and nods, but he still feels the need to add, "Just let me know if you need a break, okay?"

Iggy's smile is thin but it's there. Taking that as a good sign, Gladio doesn't hesitate again before he throws himself back into the fight. He thinks Iggy is a little more intense this time, a little more focused, and his defenses improve along with his speed. Gladio gets frustrated quickly, forgoes his sword entirely, and uses his off hand to slam a fist into Iggy's face. Ah, hell. He'd forgotten how much broken noses bleed.

To his surprise, he can hear Iggy chuckling through the hand covering the bottom half of his face.

"The hell are you laughing about?" Gladio snarls.

Iggy snorts, and blood spurts out between his fingers to splatter on the already blood-stained floor. "Free nose job," he says and chuckles to himself.

Then he sighs heavily, a familiar sound of annoyance. He drops his lance to the floor, and prods at his nose with both hands. Gladio watches him mutely, waiting for him to say something else. But instead of requesting a medic or mentioning the pain or _something normal_ , he presses a thumb against one side of his nose. Just as Gladio figures out what he's doing, a sickeningly loud pop echos in the air. Gladio's entire body flinches at the sound.

"Oh man," he hears himself say, feeling somehow distant from the moment. "That's fucked up. That's just _gross_."

Iggy raises an eyebrow at him, looking at Gladio like _he's_ the weird one. "Tibia honest, I've dealt with worse," he says.

Gladio is just not going to ask. Not about the stupid pun, and definitely not about what the hell 'worse' means.

" _Right_ ," Gladio says, reeling himself back in. "Right. I take it you're okay then? Sure you don't want a potion or something?"

"There's really nothing to be concerned with," Iggy says, like that itself isn't concerning at all. "Round three?"

"Sure, whatever," Gladio agrees.

But it's immediately obvious that as much as Iggy is pretending he's fine something is just... _off_. Gladio rarely needs to be so much on the defensive in a spar against his friend, and there's just something about Iggy's face—he doesn't know how to explain it, it's not like Iggy really _enjoys_ fighting, not the way Gladio does. But he doesn't normally look so much like, well, like he's _fighting_.

He's starting to think he made a mistake. He doesn't even feel like he's fighting Iggy, not really, feels like he's fighting something more like a daemon. It isn't so much a friendly spar anymore. He doesn't even know what Iggy thinks they're fighting _for_ , but there's no stopping now. Maybe if he can just get in one more hit…

The lance to his shoulder catches him by surprise, and he curses as Iggy yanks his weapon away and prepares another hit. His reaction is automatic, fueled by his pain and his frustration at how this whole endeavor went down, and before he's figured out what he's doing he's got his knee shoved into Iggy's back. He can _feel_ the broken bones in the wrist he's still holding, never mind the nauseating angle it's bent at, and he'd be shocked if Iggy's nose wasn't bleeding again.

" _Fuck_ ," he says, resisting the urge to leap away. He knows better than to just drop a broken wrist, let alone a dislocated shoulder, and he backs off carefully. Iggy sits up way more quickly than he ought to, holding his nose again with his unbroken hand and sighing. "Sorry, that was—I didn't even _think_ —"

"It's fine," Iggy says in a tight voice. It might be more effective if the broken nose didn't make him sound like a had a bad head cold. "I _did_ stab you."

"Right, because that makes everything okay," Gladio snaps, but he doesn't let his irritation bleed through as he prods at Iggy's injuries. Iggy barely even winces no matter what Gladio touches, gazing somewhere off into the middle distance, but the fingers holding his nose seem to pinch a little tighter every second. This is probably more touching than Iggy's allowed in _weeks_. Gladio backs off a little, stops touching and just sort of waves his hands where Iggy can see them. It makes Gladio's gestures overdramatic, but at least Iggy doesn't look like he's trying to break his own nose again. "We need to get you fixed up."

"You're sure you don't want to continue?" Iggy asks.

Gladio is so blindsided by the question he misses Iggy start to lever himself off the ground. By the time Gladio has scrambled to his own feet to help, Iggy is already standing, his good arm laid protectively over his ribs and the dislocated one hanging at his side. There's several bloody fingerprints left on the ground. Gladio resolutely doesn't look at them.

"Are you out of your mind?" he asks, relieved when it doesn't come out as a yell. He doesn't want anyone to come find out just how bad he's fucked up. "I'm fixing your shoulder and we're getting you a potion."

"Ah," Iggy says, putting his hand flat against his shoulder with a thoughtful frown. "I can take care of it."

Gladio's going to kill him. He's going to kill Iggy for being a _stubborn shit_ , and then he's going to find and kill every one of the assholes who trained him to think that relocating his own shoulder is a good idea. And he'd go still further, he'd kill the people who made the choice to have this done to him and then let this happen, except that means the king, and _dad_ and….

He takes a long, deep breath, and lets it out slowly. There's nothing he can do about what happened. It's better not to think about it.

"You don't need to take care of it," he says, forcing himself not to reach out the way he would with anyone else. "I've got it."

Iggy gives him a hard stare for long enough that Gladio figures he'll just refuse the assistance, but eventually he sighs and nods. "It'll be better with your help," Iggy says, his voice quiet.

Gladio doesn't know if he trusts Iggy not to just do it himself the second his back is turned. He gestures for Iggy to go first instead, ignores the pointed look that says Iggy knows exactly why Gladio isn't leading the way, and follows Iggy over to the little alcove of first aid supplies every training room keeps stocked. Iggy leans against the wall and watches as Gladio digs out a crumpled sling and some hand wipes.

"Clean off your face," Gladio grumbles, because he doesn't even want to try to do it himself. "And let me see your wrist."

Iggy takes the wipes from him without saying anything, so Gladio picks up his broken wrist and frowns over it. He supposes he should at least be pleased that his training is obviously working well, but this...isn't something he can fix. They'll actually have to go to the medic to set it.

A wave of exhaustion hits him from nowhere and he rubs his forehead. "We're gonna need to get this set," he announces, and gives Iggy a glare before he suggests something stupid like setting it himself. "I can handle your shoulder, but this is—ah, _fuck_."

"Is there something wrong?" Iggy asks, too calm.

"A dozen damned ways to relocate shoulders," Gladio snarls, "and every fucking one of them means I gotta grab your wrist."

"I told you I can—"

"Fuck off."

"I'm really not sure how one does that." Gladio stares at him. Iggy stares back, both eyebrows raised and still too calm as he continues, "I know plenty of things one can fuck _on_ , perhaps…."

"You know what," Gladio says. He has no idea how to finish that. "You know _what_...I'm just. Going to fix your shoulder."

"Delightful," Iggy says.

Gladio shakes his head and turns his gaze back to Iggy's shoulder. He could probably just _massage_ it back in, except that position with Iggy's wrist….

To hell with it. Iggy can obviously take a lot of pain; he'll just have to take a little bit more.

Gladio has to take a deep breath before he can bring himself to grab Iggy's wrist and start slowly rotating his arm into the right position. He hears Iggy's breath catch, feels the man's eyes watching every movement.

"Gladio, have you ever tried to eat a clock?" Iggy asks.

Gladio pauses briefly. " _What_?" he asks, and forces himself to continue the slow turn of Iggy's arm.

"It's very time consuming."

"What the _fuck_ , Iggy?" Gladio asks, trying to focus on what he's doing as Iggy chuckles to himself. He's heard Iggy spout random puns before, but last time he'd been concussed.

"Did you know if you forget to pay your exorcist you'll get re-possessed?"

Gladio stares down at him, stares long and hard as he feels Iggy's scapula pop back into place. "It's your coping mechanism," he realizes out loud. "I thought it was just the fucking concussion making you loopy, but this is…something else."

Iggy makes a little humming sound that might be an agreement. "There are no good jokes about leeches," he says. "They all suck."

"They sure fucking do," Gladio says. "C'mon, let's get the sling on."

Iggy _seems_ lucid enough as they settle his arm into the sling and Gladio buckles it back up. Gladio ignores the continuing litany of puns as he grabs a chemical ice pack and forces Iggy to hold it against his wrist. The medic is at least close by, so he doesn't feel _too_ guilty for making Iggy walk all the way there.

Gladio's just grateful that nobody's around to catch him hovering over his injured training partner, let alone for them to hear Iggy's nonsensical rambling. He's especially happy that Noct is off somewhere with that Prompto kid. He doesn't relish explaining any of this to him, not with the way Noct obliviously pines over every damn thing Iggy does.

With the halls empty—or at least as empty as they ever get—they make it to the medic without incident. The woman takes one look at them and points them to a table before rushing over to a sink to wash her hands. Iggy climbs up onto it without needing to be told, while Gladio sinks into a nearby chair with relief. The medic might not like him being there, but unless she wants to listen to puns for hours while she tries to figure out what's wrong with Iggy herself, he's not going anywhere.

"Are you aware you're bleeding?" Iggy's voice is quiet, and Gladio stares at his tired face as he processes the words. "Your shoulder…" The gesture he makes toward Gladio halts halfway through, his arm falling to his chest as his eyes slide shut.

Gladio looks down at his shoulder, wondering vaguely what he'd been talking about, and the sight of the blood staining his shirt makes unexpected pain flare down his entire arm to remind him. How the hell had he completely forgotten that Iggy had _stabbed him_? He needed to get a potion.

"Don't even think about it," the medic says, reappearing just as Gladio's starting to stand up. She thrusts a potion into Gladio's hand, scowling at him so strongly he reflexively hunches his shoulders and pushes himself into the back of the chair. "Drink that, and then you get to tell me what you did to your friend. Does _anyone_ around here know what training means?"

Gladio wonders how often she gets bleeding and broken people sitting sheepishly in her office. He downs the potion as fast as he can, hands the empty canister back to her, and tries his best flirtatious grin. The medic doesn't even blink.

"Well," he starts, clearing his throat nervously. "I might have accidentally fractured a rib. And broken his nose. And, uh, maybe broke his wrist and dislocated his shoulder." The medic stares him down, clearly unimpressed. "But he _stabbed me_."

At the last part she throws her hands up in the air, clearly just done with him, and turns to Iggy while muttering something probably uncomplimentary under breath. Gladio watches her efficient movements as she sets Iggy's wrist and checks on his other injuries, frowns a bit as he realizes just how much Iggy would hate all this poking if he were awake.

When she's done patching Iggy up, she wakes him so he can take a potion. Gladio finds himself holding his breath as Iggy's eyes open, not sure how Iggy will respond to a stranger leaning over his bed.

"Don't trust stairs," Iggy says, his voice barely slurred with sleep. "They're up to something."

"I've set the bones in your wrist," the medic informs him without missing a beat. Gladio's respect for her jumps a tiny notch. "You're going to sit up and take this potion, and once I'm sure it worked you can go home and get some rest."

The medic tries to help Iggy sit up, but he flinches away from her touch. Gladio gets out of his seat to offer a hand himself, but Iggy levels him with an impatient glare, and he's just left hovering a bit uncertainly while Iggy pushes himself up with excruciating slowness. He drinks the potion without complaint and they give it a long minute to kick in.

"I just want to make it clear that when I said you _can_ go home and rest, I didn't mean that it was optional," the medic says, taking Iggy's hand and carefully bending his wrist. "If you come back here today because you decided a potion meant you were allowed to go back to training, I'm going to tie you to a gurney."

"Kinky," Gladio says. The medic turns to glare at him. Gladio grins back and winks.

"Get out," she says, pointing to the door. "Both of you, out! And go home!"

Iggy doesn't seem to have processed any of the last few minutes. He's staring at the wall without focus, clearly awake but with his mind somewhere else entirely.

"C'mon, Iggy," Gladio says. He's not used to his own voice being this soft with anyone but his sister, and he clears his throat as Iggy looks toward him. "Time to go."

Gladio offers a hand. Iggy glances down at it, looks over toward the medic still pointing at her door, and ignores the hand to just slide himself off the table. Gladio would be offended if anyone else had done that.

"Thanks for your help," Gladio says sincerely as he ushers Iggy out of the room, but the medic just waves him off. Fair enough; she _is_ just doing her job.

The drive over to Iggy's apartment is silent, Iggy dozing off against the window. He's clearly exhausted, and that's as much Gladio's fault as the injuries were. The guilt gnaws at him as he walks Iggy up to his apartment and completely fails to be unobtrusive in his hovering as Iggy goes through the motions of getting home. Shoes on the mat, keys on the table, and he makes a beeline for his bedroom. Gladio follows, hanging far enough back that he only gets to see the result of Iggy burrowing into his bedclothes.

"You look ridiculous," Gladio says, but doesn't get an answer. He walks into the room, leans over the bed to see Iggy's closed eyes and even breathing, and smiles to himself. Good to know Iggy can still sleep with him in the room.

Iggy doesn't need him hanging around until he wakes up. Gladio leaves the apartment quietly, taking a moment to lean against the closed door and breathe while he thinks about what to do next.  
  
Cake, he decides. He owes Iggy a hell of an apology.

**Author's Note:**

> P S I know they just break the potions etc in the game, but it makes me want to scream when I actually think about it. HOW DO THEY NOT GET GLASS TRAPPED IN THEIR HANDS!? (No seriously they would cut their hands up doing that. And then the potion would heal the wounds over top of the glass. I can't)


End file.
